For a team that managed a come-from-behind 2-1 shootout victory over the Calgary Flames, the Sharks were still feeling they were robbed Tuesday night.

And if you think that the overruled OT goal by Justin Braun doesn’t matter, Todd McLellan has a reminder for you that it does.

“Regulation and overtime wins mean a lot more than shootout wins and we don’t have one in the bank when we probably should have,” he said, referring to the rule change before last season that excludes shootout wins when comparing victories for playoff positioning.

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The print edition story goes into the play itself, but let’s just say what seemed to annoy McLellan the most was the fact the referee in the neutral zone, Mike Leggo, made the goalie interference call against Tommy Wingels while the referee at the side of the net, Rob Martell, didn’t waive off the apparent score.

“What I don’t understand is the positioning of it,” said McLellan, who was careful to preface his remarks with an acknowledgement that officials have a tough job. “The referee that’s 85-90 feet away makes the call when one is only 15 feet away.”

Wingels said he didn’t think he interfered with Kiprusoff, but did have a theory as to why Leggo might have thought he saw contact.

“I bumped Kiprusoff earlier in the game and I think he had that in mind when he (Martell) saw me going to the net again,” the Sharks rookie said. ‘I’ll have to watch the replay, but at the time I thought it was a good goal.”

*****The selection of Brent Burns for the clinching shootout goal was anything but random. For one thing, McLellan said he liked the way the defenseman has been playing. For another, assistant coach Matt Shaw worked with Burns in the Minnesota organization and knew his skills.

“We’ve been going with the same group of players and sometimes teams can do a good pre-scout, so we decided to change it up a little bit,” the Sharks coach said of his shootout selection.

Burns said his backhand move was one he learned watching Mikko Koivu while the two were teammates with the Wild, where Burns was 4 for 12 in the shootout before coming to San Jose. He’s also now 2-for-2 against Kiprusoff.

Handzus, by the way, is no newcomer to the shootout either. He said that was one of his roles the previous two seasons with the Los Angeles Kings; he is 14 for 25 over his career.

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*****I asked Antti Niemi is it gives a goalie extra confidence when he sees his teammates score at the opposite end of the rink during a shootout.

“For sure it gives you confidence that you don’t must have to make the save and they have to score,” he said, “but I try not to think about it.”

David Pollak

David Pollak has been following the NHL forever and at the Mercury News as an editor or reporter since 1987. For almost a decade he wrote about the Sharks as the paper's Fan in the Stands before joining the sports department in 2001. He became the Sharks beat writer before the 2007-08 season and began this blog at that time. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PollakOnSharks.

“Regulation and overtime wins mean a lot more than shootout wins and we don’t have one in the bank when we probably should have.” -Todd McLellan

What a crank!

meetyourmako

Everybody remember that blown call on Long Island that gave us a power play in overtime? We scored on that powerplay. Remember!

Doug H

#52-excellent point, we were gifted a win against NYI.

-I really hope the return of havlat sparks some creativity. he wasnt very productive in his run of games, but i have faith in him. i do think we miss seto a LOT, and we should definitely be jumping into the market for a winger. we have some assetts we can trade, and we need a smart penalty killing forward who can rotate lines.

MLBSF

Buddy Elf says:
January 18th, 2012 at 7:28 am

smkndwntwn (last thread): You’re an idiot. The Couture comments were to point out to the donkeys here that rail on Marleau, that you can use any stats to make a player look bad.
—-

So you would think Buddy Elf would be wearing #12 to support the player he thinks is so good and defends so much right? And he would want nothing to do with the one dude he criticizes the most.

Okay, lemme check by reading on:

Buddy Elf says:
January 18th, 2012 at 7:28 am

“Couture/39 is the name/# on my Sharks jersey. I have most of his rookie cards. He is one of my favorite players.”

———

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOL !!!

So lemme get this straight. Buddy Elf has my guy on his jersey…the guy I text .. the guy he bashes all the time for being minus on the ice, etc, etc………..yet he wants absolutely nothing to do with a Marleau jersey.

Too much!

See this is what happens when you try to spin all the time. You can never remember who you support or what your true positions are. Right Buddy? LOL!

Dirty

mlBSf and BuddyElf-
Can you two just go ahead and make-out already? Thanks.

Didn’t mention it in the article, but his uncle is football great and so-so actor Rosey Grier (you can check it on Wikipedia when they come back online). Which means something to me as my mom and aunt went to high school with Rosey and knew him pretty well.

Shrkfinatic

Ok, Dave, have be the spelling police, “Rob Martell didn’t WAIVE off the goal.” Should be, “Rob Marteel didn’t WAVE off the goal.

Shrkfinatic

Oops, Rob Martell.

ZEKE

Sharks play a low scoring type of game. Which means lots of tie games and shoot out points.

We’ve played 8 games which have gotten to a shoot out, 4th in the league. We’re 3rd in shoot out wins (6) and tied for 3rd in shoot out points (14). The Devils are 8-1 in shoot outs, Colorado is 7-0, Minny is 5-5 and LAK 4-5.

Our 20 ‘regulation or OT’ wins is tied for 7th in the West with Calgary. 6 teams have 25 or more regulation or OT wins — 3 are in the West. Det with 27, StL and Van with 26.

Doug H

oh, and as an aside. i think we have the best announcers in the NHL. really enjoy listening to those two. by far the cheesiest guys on TV!

Geri(h)atric

@ZEKE: I remember Rosey Grier. When I was a kid, he was on a TV show… doing *needlepoint*… and daring anyone to get in his face and call him a sissy for doing it.

Re: Tom… if dude didn’t come in, and continually make errors when speaking up about stuff, he’d have flown right by my radar. I ignored it the first 2 times when he spoke about stuff he had not a clue about, and would have this time as well… he called me out in his post, not the other way around.

Johnny San Jose

Geri(h)atric — If I recall correctly, he gave it to himself saying something like, “Nobody would remember a guy named David Jones”.

I think he’s the one that also came up with the term, “sack” as in sacking the QB.

He was also in a Brady Bunch episode encouraging Peter to not be ashamed of joining the glee club.

Johnny San Jose

Buddy Elf — Take the high road… like Martin Brody does.

Tom (fm Quinzee)

Snow Shovel, I’m one of whom? Just kidding, but I am keeping a skip rope handy for Patsy to do the double-dutch with come playoff time.

About that I’m serious. There’s only one thing Patsy has to prove, and that is that JR was wrong.

Buddy Elf

Tom: get stuff right… for once. “There was a reason Roenick called Patsy gutless” is what you said. He didn’t called Marleau gutless… “An unbelievably poor effort from Patrick Marleau. A gutless, gutless, performance by Patrick Marleau. Count them– zero points in this series. And he had a game like that.”

He was talking about the game specifically, possibly broader to the series… his performance was gutless according to JR.

Ciouple of observations:
#1 star = Flames goalie. Lucky and exceptionally good.
Iginla was a beast. Hope #29 is ready to go when the Sharks visit Calgary.
Burns is cool.
Frigid in WI.
Air fare to SJ has all of a sudden go through the roof.
Have a nice evening. JP

ZEKE

Best Deacon Jones memory — kicking an extra point for the last point in a 42-0 win as a Redskin. Ball hit the upright (kind of like a post in hockey) and bounced in.

Sharkz

Bad call for sure. But given how the players were positioned, from the wrong angle it might have looked that way. Still, bad call and it sucks for a guys who’ll be luck to score 5 goals all season.

I loved Thornton’s tongue in cheek Q&A response, to wit:

Thornton: “Ref said he was 100% sure Wingels ran into the goalie.
Reporter: “Well he was 100% wrong”.
Thornton: “What should we do?”

slappy

SnowShovel@41

“Tom is one of us. He’s on our side.” Who’s “us” and “our side?” Who set up sides? Is the opposite of “us” a lesser valued “them?” Isnt this a hockey forum for fans of the sport and of the Sharks team. Maybe I got it wrong. Is this a forum for an inner circle of “special” people?

ogie oglethorpe

hey elf, it seems that you might just be a small, angry, underendowed loudmouth that can’t seem to realize that there are opinions or facts that don’t jibe with your views…at first you were mildly amusing in an overly aggressive way, now you’re just kind of a sad little representation of all the numskull, ugly douches that think they have all the answers…it’s gotta suck to work with you